Jan 30, 2014

If the thought of a hot sandwich filled with beef, melted cheese, caramelized onions and peppers served with beef broth for dipping sound appealing, you NEED to make these!

These sandwiches make the perfect game day meal, start this early in the morning because you'll need 9 to 12 hours, depending on the size of your roast. You can even serve them as sliders by serving them on dinner rolls.

Ever since I got my hands on the The Recipe Girl Cookbook: Dishing Out the Best Recipes for Entertaining and Every Day, I've had my eye on this recipe because I love a good French Dip! To be honest, I've never made roast beef in the slow cooker, because I love my roast beef in the oven, cooked to medium rare. But I took a chance because I was curious and made this yesterday. Smelled so good simmering all day and when it was ready I made myself a sandwich… it was awesome!

My husband came home from work hungry and I made him a sandwich, and he LOVED it! I didn't have to do much to her recipe to make it light, I just used whole grain bread (tried with both whole wheat baguette and whole wheat 100 calorie potato rolls) and I used portion control and they were perfectly satisfying. I highly recommend making the onions and peppers, in my opinion they make the sandwich!

I've known Lori (aka Recipe Girl) for quite a few years, we first met on Twitter, then in person a few times and recently spent a weekend away at the Better Blog Retreat in Park City, Utah along with a few other lovely ladies. Lori is pictured on my left.

The recipes in her book are perfect for entertaining and she includes menu ideas from everything from football parties, romantic dinners for two, holiday parties, tailgating parties and more, or you can just serve them up any night of the week.

Because this can make several servings depending on the size of the roast you purchase, and the appetites of your guests I am leaving out the serving size and calculating the nutrition based on one sandwich using a whole wheat baguette.

In a small bowl mix garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. Rub the spice mixture onto all sides of the roast, then place in the slow cooker.

Pour the broth into the side of the roast until it just cover the meat. If the broth doesn't cover the roast you can add water and top with onions. Add the Worcestershire sauce, peppercorns and bay leaf to the broth. Cover and cook on low until the meat flakes apart easily with a fork, about 9 to 12 hours, depending on the size of your roast.

An hour before the meat is done, prepare the onions and peppers. In a large nonstick skillet heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and salt and cook until golden, stirring often, reducing heat as needed if the onions are burning or browning too quickly, about 30 to 35 minutes. Add 1 tbsp to the pan if it becomes too dry. The onions should turn golden and the flavor should be sweet. Transfer to a serving bowl, then add the peppers to the skillet and cook stirring often until soft, 8 to 10 minutes.

Remove the meat from the slow cooker to a cutting board and shred with a fork or slice with a knife. Strain the broth through a fine sieve then place in a gravy separator to remove any fat. Pour 1/4 cup broth into each small ramekin.

Preheat the oven to broil. Split the bread open and top with 2 ounces of beef. Top with onions, peppers and cheese and broil until the cheese melts. Place on a plate with broth for dipping.

98 comments
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Looks yummy! Thanks Gina, I'm going to make this one tonight! P.S. My 11 year old's request for her 11th birthday dinner celebration? None other than your Skinny Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy for dinner. Such a great recipe. xoxo

I would think a good sub for rosemary could be anything you love. But I would stick to an "italian" seasoning. Like fresh basil or oregano. I put fresh basil in almost everything and it's so nice and light

These look AMAZING! Just a quick question about the beef broth you use: I'm in Canada where we often don't have the same products (I've never seen this brand). Is this a special (concentrated?) type of broth in any way? Or should any low-sodium beef broth do the trick?

Oh Gina this sandwich looks fantastic. I have been looking for a good French Dip recipe. We just bought a house and now people are over all the time to help us with various projects. I need lots of easy recipes to feed several without much effort. This certainly fits the bill.

I have the same question! Right after I decided that I need to make this recipe, I decided that I need the mandolin! Much easier than mine (which has different plates to switch out for different thickness).

French dips are my comfort food, however, my husband has an allergy to MSG, which is found in pretty much all beef broth except organic (which tends to have very little flavor). Could I use some beef stock with organic beef broth to make the roast (and au jus) have enough flavor?

Here's what you missed: she says, "Because this can make several servings depending on the size of the roast you purchase, and the appetites of your guests I am leaving out the serving size and calculating the nutrition based on one sandwich using a whole wheat baguette." If you use Gina's serving size of 2 oz. of cooked meat per sandwich, I would guess you would get approx. 5-6 servings per (raw) pound of roast. So, maybe a 3 lb. roast would be about 15 or so servings. Just a guess because I'm not sure how much the roast will cook down. Also, if you're serving hearty appetites (super bowl party) they may put much more than 2 oz. per roll.

Thanks Babs, my 3 lb roast cooked down to 27 ounces. Mine would have made 13 sandwiches if using 2 oz each, but for guests and hungry men, I would expect them to eat more and I would prefer to have extra so I would say this safely feed 10 to 12.... a 4 lb roast would feed a larger crowd but it will also take closer to 12 hours.

Made this today and it was DELICIOUS! Hubby and all 3 kids loved it (very rare occurrence). I used a 3.5 lb top round roast with dried herbs. It took 3 cans broth + 1/4 cup of water to cover the roast. I cooked it on high for 1 hour then low for 8 -- I would say it was a bit overdone, but no one cared. Didn't have peppers but the carmelized onions were fantastic. I don't have a gravy separator and it didn't matter -- scooping fat off top the best I could seemed to work fine. Thank you Gina for such fantastic healthy recipes!

I hope somebody see this before tomorrow when I make this. My store was out of round roast. Sirloin roasts were on sale and my butcher gave me an end-of-the-day discount so I have a a gorgeous 3-lb sirloin roast. I know it's a higher quality cut of meat so I assume it doesn't need to be cooked as long. How long do you think would be good for it without drying it out?

THANK YOU for a slow-cooker recipe that not only looks delicious, but requires more than 6-8 hours to cook! On a normal day I'm out of the house for 10 hours and hate having to ask my night-working husband to get out of bed and turn the Crock Pot on just a few hours after he gets home. This, however, is perfect. I can prep it the night before and stick it in the fridge, and I figure since it's going in cold it'll need the full 12 hours to cook. Absolutely perfect. I can't wait to make it.

A great success for the whole family! Husband had the full sandwich with the meat, veggies and cheese, I had meat and veggies, the kids had just meat on their sandwiches and uncooked peppers on the side.

There are two places in this recipe regarding the onions. First to put them over the roast. Then it says to prepare the onions and peppers. do you take the onions from the slow cooker? or use more onions. Confused!

Seriously? Gina very thoughtfully arranged the ingredients so that it's clear what goes where. The ingredients for the roast say 1/2 of a large onion. The ingredients for the caramelized onions say 3 large sliced onions. I fail to see where the confusion is coming from?

I too was confused about the onions being mentioned in a few locations. And while you cleared that up by explaining, there isn't a real need to get all "Seriously?!" about it. Clearly yes seriously, some of us had questions. :P

What a concept to do a roast in a slow cooker! Is it possible to get a medium rare roast from this method? Just shorten the cooking time? What do you think Gina...is this a new method for cooking roasts...I always have trouble in the oven...either too rare or too well done.

Wow, another fantastic meal I can give you props for Gina, thanks so much for passing this idea along! I used mini-hoagie rolls and hollowed outv the middles for less points. Then, I toasted the bread I removed from the rolls so my guys could have more toasted bread to dip... they LOVED the broth it made!So far my family has loved everything I've made from your blog. Thanks for helping me stay on course, so far all the reduced fat recipes make me feel like I'm not actually on weight watchers, lol.

If you don't have a gravy separator then you can use a ladle to put some of the broth into a measuring cup, then pour it into another container using a strainer with very fine mesh. Or, cheesecloth stretched over the opening so that it strains out all the onion bits and fat globules!

Bay leaves are really good to have on hand for soups, pasta sauces, stews, etc. You can get them dried, but the last time I bought them I got them fresh and just popped them in the freezer. I take one out every time I need one. They've kept wonderfully for months now.

I made this last weekend. I cooked 1 3 1/3-lb roast for 8 1/2 hours on low in a 6 qt crockpot and the meat was extremely overdone. However, it smelled so good and we didn't want to waste the beef, so we tried it and it tasted great. The jus softened it up and the onions, peppers, cheese and a little bit of horseradish made it delish. I will try again and cut the cooking time back.

This is a fantastic recipe that my family adores! Thank you so much, once again, for a great recipe and nutritional information.

The only thing - and maybe it's just the browser I'm using - but the ingredients in the beef section look like they run together with multiple ingredients on a line. The reason I noticed is that I've forgotten the beef broth EVERY time I make this. LOL! You'd think I'd remember after the first time but no. Must be a mental block. Just thought I'd point that out because I think it's an easy fix and might save someone else the last minute run to the store.

Or maybe it's just me. ;o) Either way, thank you for your amazing and inspirational recipes!

Definitely not you. I ran into the same problem last night/this morning. I went grocery shopping for the week yesterday and last night, as I was getting into bed, I read over this recipe once to prepare myself for the prep work I'd have to do this morning before work. I was less than pleased when I realized I'd have to set my alarm for 5:30 so I could make it to the store and back in time to get everything ready before work. Grr!

I had looked the recipe over Sunday morning when I was picking out our meals for the week but was only looking at the bulleted points on the recipe lists as I put my shopping list together.

I love Skinny Taste recipes but I was not such a fan of a 5:30am grocery store trip for beef broth (not a staple item in my pantry, obviously.)

I have been wanting to make these for a long time and we finally had them for dinner last night! Delicious and easy. The husband loved them. I didn't have dried (or fresh) rosemary so I subbed in dried oregano. The meat was so tender. The husband loved them! Much healthier than the versions he usually gets out.